Shenmue AM2 Podcast

Mostly the photography nerd in me, but yes, nice edits, as well! The cut-timing of room/table side view to face shot of you looking down at the cups was perfect, as well as a great objective-esque shot, which is my preferred style of photography (Objectivism being straight-on, flat framing and giving a beautifully simple, virtually 2-d feel to the 3 dimensional subject).
 
We are giving away a Sacred Spot Map. Tweet us a picture of your Shenmue collection with the #shenmueam2podcast and you will be entered for a chance to win the English version of the Shenmue 1&2 Sacred Spot Map. Contest closes March 3rd at 11:59 PM AST.
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In regard to your description of your experience of getting a negative response to your criticisms of the new Twin Peaks... I don't know exactly what that entails, aside from you describing it as "hate" and generally the idea that no one wanted to "allow" you to be disappointed about it. Just as you feel that you have the right to express your criticisms, shouldn't others be able to take issue (respectfully) with your criticisms? (Hateful responses are completely wrong and unacceptable.) But I really don't understand this concept of you feeling that you're not "allowed" to be disappointed. You realize in advance that your opinion is not universally shared. Maybe you feel that there's something at stake in the sense that your podcast will become noticeably less popular and you're losing listeners or something, but if a listener feels that you're being unfair in your assessment then that's how it goes. The audience members who recognize your integrity will stick around even if they disagree with you.

In saying that there is a segment of the population that believes Yu Suzuki and other masters of their respective media "can do no wrong"... this seems like a way of oversimplifying the opinions of those who happen to be happy with the next Shenmue, the next Twin Peaks, etc. There may be some fanatics who actually believe that these artists can do no wrong, but they're surely a small segment of the overall population. You realize that you won't change their minds because they're fundamentally unreasonable. Why get upset about them? They should be completely ignored. (...Well, easier said than done. Anyone who's worked a job interacting with the public knows that you could have 200 great customers in a day, but you're going to remember and really be bothered by the one or two assholes.)

The dynamic I observe that happens around here sometimes is this. Someone shows up with some criticism about what's going on. It could be major or minor. Someone else disagrees with that criticism in one way or another. Then that person is accused of having "blind faith" or something. At that point it's not a discussion in good faith, it's just a battle of wills in repeating one's opinion.

There are people who accept that these creators are imperfect, and yet do still like a creation that in some ways adheres to their expectations - while at the same time subverts those expectations by having surprising, unexpected elements. Those are people you can expect to have a reasonable discussion with, even if you ultimately disagree.

Regarding this week's brief drama, your critique was with the marketing campaign. In this case the marketing in question is an overlap of Magic Monaco and Shenmue III. We don't really know where this fits in with the official, public-facing marketing of Shenmue III that presumably is going to be spearheaded by Deep Silver. Cedric Biscay has said that Magic is a small event and apparently he figures it's best to handle this sort of announcement on a shoestring budget. He could have sprung for a live translator for the event, and crafted the tweets more carefully. Ultimately I don't see this as part of Shenmue III's official marketing campaign, which has yet to begin. I get the sense it was not easy for Cedric to persuade all the parties involved to arrange for this to happen. Yeah, it probably could have been handled better - but all things considered, with the unique confluence of crowdfunding and corporate funding, someone is always going to find a reason to be pissed off.

There are some factors as to why Shenmue disagreements can be so intense. One is the wait we've endured. The long odds the project has overcome make it seem to be very fragile. We all want this to succeed in a huge way and no one wants anyone to undermine that. While it's largely out of our hands, at the same time we've seen that we as a community have been instrumental in keeping this series alive. The drip-feed of information we've seen so far has given us all a lot of time to critique a very small amount of actual information. Hopefully we'll have a lot more robust material to chew on very soon.
 
Someone in these forums summed it up perfectly. This was their post:

I think these two guys have a point here. This is yet another PR blunder, even though not a major one. But still, if you have a trailer which includes gameplay for a game of which no gameplay has been shown so far, your main message needs to be "Hey everyone, we've got a trailer with gameplay in it coming" and not making it sound like gameplay was only to be shown to a few select people behind closed doors.

It's a good thing they asked Cedric about it and Cedric took the feedback and clarified the whole matter. He could have avoided the backlash in the first place by sending out a clear message but we're all good now.

What happened here was: Unclear message from Cedric ---> valid criticism -----> clarification from Cedric -----> everybody's happy.

No need to get mad at Matt and Andrew. Just because they're Shenmue fans doesn't mean they can't critizise anything related to Shenmue. We need to stop being overly protective of Shenmue and Yu. Neither Yu nor Cedric nor anyone else involved in making this game is infallible and valid and constructive criticism is a good thing.
 
Seems like you're intent on only focusing on the most unreasonable of responses, so in that case, enjoy! I don't believe you're out of line, and I also don't believe you're being treated unfairly. But you are reducing the entire spectrum of responses into a sort of binary, for whatever reason.
 
Zoyous said:
Seems like you're intent on only focusing on the most unreasonable of responses, so in that case, enjoy! I don't believe you're out of line, and I also don't believe you're being treated unfairly. But you are reducing the entire spectrum of responses into a sort of binary, for whatever reason.
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We really only had a problem with those types of responses. That is why we are focusing on them. I thought that was the point of all of this. We won't continue debating simply for the sake of debating. We are considering the matter over. Cheers!
 
Shenmue AM2 Podcast said:
We really only had a problem with those types of responses. That is why we are focusing on them. I thought that was the point of all of this. We won't continue debating simply for the sake of debating. We are considering the matter over. Cheers!
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I found the whole discussion very interesting listening to it. Going forward I'd hope that this is a lesson learnt. I dint think it was a deliberate mistake or anything like that. Glad all was clarified in the end. However with this clarity you can't please everyone as seen by some the Twitter posts following Cedric's announcement.

The stories around fans helping Andrew with his collections are awesome. It reminded me of a situation on the 500k where a guy had his whole game collection robbed. Next thing you saw was people offering their duplicates to him to help build the collection again. Amazing stuff from the community.

I'd like to hear more of those sorts of stories. I've had it with Monaco with Peter and Team Yu offering advice of getting out there etc. They didn't have to but they did because it's what Shenmue fans do.
 
Shenmue AM2 Podcast said:
No need to get mad at Matt and Andrew. Just because they're Shenmue fans doesn't mean they can't critizise anything related to Shenmue. We need to stop being overly protective of Shenmue and Yu. Neither Yu nor Cedric nor anyone else involved in making this game is infallible and valid and constructive criticism is a good thing.
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Also Happy Birthday Matt!
 
When it comes to Shenmue and trailers, I try to come in with blank expectations. I just want to see how it is so far and nothing more. We do see how the story and game expands. I like how it still feels like the Shenmue we played, but just adds more to it
 
Hey Andrew and Matt, just wanted to say I've found your last few episodes to be really strong and your best ones yet.

I was surprised I liked Episode 50 with the wifeys as much as I did. I'll be frank, I thought it was going to be at best awkwardly cute or charming yet passable, however the 4 of you altogether had good chemistry and hell I'd be down if you guys got them involved every now and then in the future.

As for the Episode 51, I found this to be my favorite episode. I didn't share the same concerns but I think an honest discussion about Shenmue is important for the community to have, and I thought you guys were very fair in your critique about the conference/communication in February and I didn't feel you guys were shitting on it the way a small handful did. It also makes me look forward more to your podcasts when Shenmue 3 comes out because I know whether you come down positive or negative I know you guys are going to have an honest balanced assessment.

In addition, has there been talk of trying to get Esra on the podcast again to talk about the Shenmue 3 gameplay demonstration he saw earlier this month? I have no idea if he's bound to some confidentiality outside of his IGN article but if not I think it would be awesome if he could speak verbally on the things he saw.

Keep it up and thanks for all the hard work you guys are putting into this.
 
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